


Astray

by Karwin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 22,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21678571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karwin/pseuds/Karwin
Summary: A simple roll of the dice, a random cue up in the physics system of the universe, and bam; an effortless step from one world to another.Note: This story was written ages ago and is more than likely fuck awful, grammar wise at the very least. I'm mostly just posting it as a form of penance XD





	1. Chapter 1

Cory woke in the middle of the desert. Well, perhaps ‘woke’ is the wrong term for what happened. More that he was already conscious, and just suddenly became aware of his being in the middle of a giant sea of hot sand.

He looked around the place, his mind working slowly as it tried to fully register what was happening around him. Looking around a second and third time, Cory confirmed that he wasn’t hallucinating, and that it was, in fact, desert in every direction he could see.

‘Where am I?’ he wondered when his brain finished shaking the cobwebs off. And, almost immediately after the questioned finished forming in his mind, blind panic set in and he took of running full tilt across the sand.

This only lasted about ten minutes though. The unreasonably hot sun and endless sand wore the confused teenager out before he’d even gone a full mile and a half through it.

As he doubled over to try and catch his breath, no small task with how hot and displeasing the air was, and the panic filling him waned just enough for him to get a rational thought through. He began to think back, trying to think back and see if he could remember how he had ended up appearing within this scolding hot desert.

He had been in his home, he knew that much. It had been night time, and he remembered that he’d just returned home and gotten into an argument with his parents about his being out so late. Had he gone to sleep? Yes, that must have been it; he’d gone to sleep after the argument and now he was dreaming about the desert.

This thought calmed him momentarily, and he stood back up to start walking forward, looking around at the desert scenery as he did so to see what kind of world his mind had created for him in his sleep.

The dream was remarkably details, Cory thought. He could feel every bead of sweat on his body, and was aware both of the intense heat beating down on him from above and radiating up from the sand below. Perhaps, he thought, this was some kind of lucid dream. He had heard about those, but hadn’t thought he would ever have one himself.

‘Shouldn’t I be able to control it then?’ He thought as he walked. He tried to take off flying through the sky, as it would definitely beat walking across the desert, but for some reason, he couldn’t manage it. ‘Guess I don’t have much control over it.’ He thought to himself, scanning the horizon for anything interesting.

As he looked around, he heard something. Some kind of movement nearby. He saw it to, if only for a moment. A shifting in the gritty sand a few feet away before the ground became still again.

Cory stared at the spot where he had seen the movement, wondering what kind of nightmare atrocity would jump out at him if he went over to it. He figured he may as well, as dying within his dream would cause him to wake up, and he started to make his way over to the shifting sand.

When he was only a few steps away from the spot he’d seen the movement, the sand before him seemed to explode. Grains of sand were blasted away in all directions as a wide, fanged mouth rose up and closed in on him.

As the mouth of far too many fangs approached, the world seemed to slow in Cory’s mind. As it did, something occurred to Cory that made his blood turn into frozen slush despite the heat of the desert around him.

He remembered the argument he had had with his parents. They had yelled at him for breaking his curfew. He had only been out with his friends, but they had yelled at him for not at least calling to say he’d be back late.

Sure, his friends and he had had a few drinks, but nothing worth getting upset about. At least, that was what Cory had thought. But his parents had given him hell for it, and he’d left the house in a huff.

He hadn’t gone to sleep. He had walked out of the house and started towards the street. He had been passing the trash can at the edge of the yard and then.. Desert.

‘I’m not dreaming.’ Cory realize in shock. Even more frightening, that meant that this creature in front of him was truly there as well, about to bite down and separate his top half from his bottom half.

Cory jumped back, the tips of the front most fangs digging into his boots and ripping them off as the creature’s cry, pink, cracked body sank back into the sand with a low hiss.

Cory scrambled to his feet and started running again, full sprint in the other direction. The sandworm followed him from below, and Cory could hear it, feel the vibrations in the sand below his feet.

The sand parted again as the sandworm sprang out again. Its powerful fangs sank into Cory’s chest, pulling him into the mouth of the creature. Cory tried to let out a scream of agony as he felt the many other fangs of the creature, jabbing and piercing and cutting into him from every angle, but his body went numb as his spine was cut, and everything faded to darkness as the creature’s inner acids washed over him, beginning to remove the flesh from his body.

Cory, in his last moments of lucidity before losing consciousness, swore he’d be better to his parents. Considering he’d gone from a solid to a liquid in the following few minutes, it was unlikely that he’d ever get the chance.


	2. Chapter 2

The slime was not aware that any significant change had been made at all. Sure, the grasslands to which it was native had turned into pavements, but that meant nothing to the slime. As far as the slime was concerned, the grass had just become pavement. Perhaps after some time, it would turn back again.

Slimes didn’t have much in the way of thought process. It was a blissfully ignorant creature, hence the constant, unending smile it wore on its face. The slime was somewhat confused by it now seeming to be nightfall when it had been mid-day moments ago, but the slime reasoned that it must have simply lost track of time while out searching for food.

And speaking of, the slime realized that there was plenty here for it to eat. The grime that coated the street was a feast to the slime, the likes of which it usually only saw on the stormiest of nights in the grasslands.

The slime was now overjoyed by its new surroundings, and hopped across the pavement, absorbing the filth of the street into its body for energy. It heard many screams from nearby humans as it did this, and saw one of the large metal carts swerve out of control to avoid it.

The slime paid little attention to this. Sometimes humans just screamed; nothing to worry about. The slime had heard the sound many times before in its grassland home, though at those times it had always been caused by a different monster. These humans must just not be familiar with the slime breed. Yes, this made sense to the slime.

The slime scoured the street, sopping up the grime like a sponge. It was quite oblivious to the humans, who were all either fleeing in terror, or standing around taking as many pictures and videos and the grinning blue tear drop shaped monster as it bounced around the street.

Some time later though, the slime heard an odd siren sound. To investigate, the slime jumped and turned in mid-air so it was facing the sound when it landed. It saw more of the metal carts, though these ones glowed with flashing lights, some form of magic the slime assumed upon seeing them.

The humans that exited the vehicle must have known more about slimes than the other humans had, the slime thought, because they did not scream in fear and panic upon seeing it. They did all draw their strange weapons and aim them in the slime’s direction, which it didn’t like. It didn’t recognize the kind of weapon, but it could tell from how they help them that they were.

The slime saw no point in fighting these humans. It was full now and wanted only to find some place to rest up. It did another hop and mid-air turn, but this movement seemed to agitate the humans, and they fired at it. A bullet grazed its side and the slime became aware that a single direct shot would destroy it.

The slime promptly fled the area. Slimes were always remarkably fast when fleeing situations, a benefit of weighing so little, and the slime was several blocks away before the police were even back to their cars.

With a little more searching, more discreetly this time, the slime managed to stumble upon a sewage grate. It took a little effort, but it managed to squeeze its semi-liquid body through the grate, where it fell into the stream of sewer water below. For most humans, animals, plants, and even other monsters, ending up floating in sewage was not an idea situation. For the slime though, it was perfect.

The temperature and environment were perfect for the slime, more so than its own native habitat. The slime had a constant flow of sustenance from the sewage, and so never needed to even move to survive.

Because of this, it saw no reason to ever leave, and the sewer became its new home. Slimes spent their entire lives gathering enough food and energy to grow and expand until there was enough of them that they could split into several slimes. This was the only form of reproduction a slime had.

The slime had grown enough to begin dividing in only a few months, and the sewer became the feeding grounds for six new baby slimes. By this time, most all the humans above had long since forgotten about the story of the strange slime creature, and with no one searching for the slimes, they could continue to feed, grow, and multiple.

By the end of the following year, several thousand slimes lived throughout the sewers, by which point their presence had begun to disrupt the normal sewage flow. This fact made headlines across the globe when it was discovered.

Some called it a hoax, until it was discovered that the slimes were beginning to spread. Some had been forced out of the sewer by strong currents, and by traveling through the water, had found up in many parts of the world. They were a remarkably adaptive species, and with enough time, were able to change enough to fit any environment they found themselves in.

In less than a decade, slimes were on every continent in the world. By that point though, very few people cared anymore. Mostly because they’d been around long enough for it to not be surprising, but also because there had been much, much bigger problems discovered by that point.


	3. Chapter 3

Lexi held on to the side of the mountain, breathing deeply as she did all she could to keep herself calm. It wasn’t exactly an easy task considering the several hundred mile drop directly in front of her.

Lexi tried thinking back, tried to remember how she had gotten where she was. But looking back, she remembered nothing after she had left her boyfriend’s house. Nothing, that is, but suddenly realizing that she was standing on the edge of a cliff instead of on the edge of a porch.

She had been at the summit of the mountain range when she first became aware of her surroundings, and had been steadily working her way down since then. She wasn’t sure how long she had been going, but considering she still couldn’t actually see the ground, she figured she had a long way to go.

She had tried to call for help on her phone, but after not getting anything even remotely resembling a phone signal, she had decided it would be best to take matters into her own hands.

Lexi had tried to stop and rest some time ago; a mistake she wouldn’t soon make again. She had found a cave in the side of the mountain with some relatively flat ground and tried to rest inside. This brilliant plan was ruined when a giant bat chased her from the cave.

Lexi’s fear response had always leaned more towards flight than anything else, and she’s taken off so fast upon seeing the gorilla sized bat monster that she’d nearly run right off the cliff.

She’d moved as fast as she reasonably could along the edge of the cliff, the bat monster flying out after her. In a moment of blind panic, Lexi had made the operative decision to jump.

The bat had smashed into the ledge where Lexi had been and dropped down in a daze. As she fell, Lexi was filled with a sensation similar to when she had first ridden a rollercoaster; like every cell in her body was tensing in fear all at once.

Thankfully, there had been another ledge beneath the one that Lexi had dropped from. At just over a dozen feet, the landing was by no means pleasant, pain shooting through Lexi’s knees and sides as she impacted the rough stone, but she had survived it and that was priority.

Lexi had remained there, still, for several minutes. She had caught her breath and forced herself to stop shaking before slowly getting back to her feet and starting to move back down the cliff.

Lexi had to push the fact that bat monsters existed to the back of her mind for now. As upsetting as the thought was, dwelling on it now was pointless and would just distract her from the task at hand.

Lexi thought instead about what she would do upon reaching the ground. She figured she would search for civilization, then contact the emergency authorities, then contact her parents. From there it was just a matter of time until they determined where she was and sent help.

Lexi would go home and hug her parents. She’d probably break down sobbing as she told them about the giant bat. They probably wouldn’t believe her, but they wouldn’t say so to her at the time.

Her boyfriend, Richard, wouldn’t believe her either, but he would do everything he could to comfort her and stop her from crying.

Her friend Liz would believe her. Liz was always going on and on about the possibility of mutated animals and how fantastic creatures could be lurking where humans couldn’t see them. Liz would be over the moon to hear about this when Lexi got back with a sighting of one.

Lexi just kept her mind of this, kept thinking about what she would do when she got back. She refused to consider the alternative; the possibility that she might not make it back at all.

Lexi had always had a knack for being able to go into autopilot, letting her stop focusing on the details and just move her way down. It had been a skill that had gotten her through many college tours before this, and with any luck, would get her through a few more after this was over.

Unfortunately, if she had been more focused on the surroundings, she might have noticed the nest on the ledge she was walking across. If she had noticed said nest, she might have noticed that it was more than ten feet across, with three humanoid bird creatures roosting inside of it.

Lexi didn’t notice the bird women until they shrieked at her though. A sense of dread filled her as the ugly, wrinkling skinned harpies with grimy feathers left their nest and jumped at her hungrily.

Lexi threw up her arms to protect herself, feeling sharp, filthy talons cut through her sleeves and rake across her arms before the force of the attack knocked her off of the cliff.

Lexi was looking up as she fell, watching the harpies follow her down to the ground. She wasn’t sure how long she fell, but the harpies seemed pleased. They were happy they wouldn’t have to bother with killing their new meal, as by the time they reached Lexi, she had hit the ground already, and was unrecognizable to anyone as anything other than a mess of meat; the harpies’ favorite food.


	4. Chapter 4

The gryphon was sleeping when it appeared on the roof on the building. It had been resting safe in its den when the transfer had happened, and didn’t know there was anything wrong until it heard a high pitched scream from below. It woke, looking down and taking notice of its new surroundings.

This rooftop, comfortable though it may have been directly within the warm light of the sun with a slight breeze coming in as well, was not the gryphon’s den. It had needed to fight off three cave dwelling giant spiders to claim its den, and it didn’t fancy the idea of being relocated.

The gryphon looked down over the edge of the rooftop to see what the source of the frightened screaming had been. It found that it was a human female, which didn’t surprise it. Humans were quite inconsiderate at times. Why exactly the human woman had decided to start screaming, the gryphon didn’t know, and was finding it extremely difficult to care.

Nevertheless, the gryphon supposed it would need to get up in order to figure out where it was and find its way back to its den. The gryphon stood, stretching out its limbs, which included its wings. This was met with a chorus of screams from the many human onlookers below.

This amused the gryphon, as it realized the humans were screaming because of it. Scaring humans was always fun, though why they were afraid at this moment, the gryphon didn’t know. It was clearly not hostile, humans had long ago learned to tell the difference between an aggressive gryphon and a docile one, and that knowledge had served them well. 

Perhaps these humans were just dim. Yes, it was usually safe to assume that humans were just dim.

Taking this as an acceptable explanation for the humans’ panic, the gryphon lept from the rooftop, flying off. Immediately many humans began taking pictures and videos of the creature as it flew away. 

This confused the gryphon someone, as it had not seen a spell like that before and wasn’t sure what it did. But the gryphon supposed humans were always making new spells, and it didn’t seem to be harming the gryphon in any way, so it continued on its way.

The gryphon wasn’t sure how it had been moved from its den and placed on the rooftop, and if it ever found a responsible culprit for it, it would happily return the favor and drop them from the highest point it could get them to, but it saw no reason to go searching for them if they weren’t around for them. So long as it could find its den, it didn’t care.

Gryphons were fully capable of flying for days on end without stopping when they needed to. The gryphon did need to stop once in its travels, landing on a dock next to an ocean. Some courteous human had left a trough of fish out for it, and it happily devoured as much as it could and fell asleep.

A human greeted the gryphon the next morning, but it must not have been the one responsible for the fish, as it appeared quite hostile to the gryphon, using some kind of weapon. The gryphon had avoided arrows easily in the past, but whatever the man’s weapon fired, it hit hard in the gryphon’s side.

It was far from a fatal wound, or even on that would do much more than slow down its flying, but it was more than enough to enrage the creature. It let out a roaring squak, the noise alone causing the armed man to drop his weapon and begin fleeing.

Offended by the attack, the gryphon followed him, jumping into the air and flying after. The gryphon tackled the man to the ground, digging into his back with its front claws. It wouldn’t be lethal, but bloody and painful, just like the hole in the gryphon’s side.

Feeling as though some amount of justice was served by this, the gryphon returned to the docks. It had been hoping to greet the human who had left the fish, but was now too annoyed to stay in this place. Oh well, the gryphon thought, jumping from the dock and getting back to its flight towards the mountains.

The gryphon finally reached the mountains some days later. Unfortunately though, it didn’t appear to be the gryphon’s native mountain range. This was quite irritating, nearly infuriating even, but trying to fly across the world searching for the right one was more trouble than it would ultimately be worth if the gryphon could find a cave here to use as a den of its own.

As it searched, the gryphon found no harpie or dragons dwelling in these mountains, no giant spiders or trolls, not even any wyverns or julton inhabited these mountains; it was a extremely non-threatening place, which made it ideal.

The most dangerous thing the gryphon found was a pack of ordinary lions in a cave. The leading male was not remotely pleased when the gryphon entered the cave, and tried to pounce on him in protest.

The gryphon’s superior strength allowed it to throw the lion off, keeping it at a distance first by slashing at it, then by spreading its wings for intimidation. When the lion tried to pounce again, the gryphon jumped into the air, kicking off the roof of the cave and pinning the lion to the floor of it, crushing its skull easily with its beak. 

The gryphon didn’t much care for killing things it didn’t have to, but felt no remorse for defending itself. The female lions living in the cave seemed to take this in stride, accepting the gryphon as the new leader.

It wasn’t exactly the gryphon’s native form of den, but it would do. Especially when the gryphon discovered that mating with the normal lions was quite possible. Within a few years, the gryphon population would begin to spread throughout the entire mountain range.


	5. Chapter 5

Ryan panicked within moments of first opening his eyes and seeing the world around him. He was standing at the edge of what looked like a rode, but that was the only thing he could be absolutely certain of.

Within the first few seconds of looking around, he saw a cart being pulled along by a reptilian horse creature with purple feathers, a merchant with the head of a wolf arguing with a knight over the cost of a shield, and a man pulling a rope attached to a cage where a green skinned goblin chewed in vain at the bars.

Seeing these things did not sit well with Ryan in the least. In fact, seeing them shattered his perception of the world near instantly, several times over actually. With nothing more rational to do, he took off sprinting down the road.

Several people looked at Ryan as he ran as though he were the odd one. He also saw several creatures that were most certainly not humans looking at him the same way. They all moved away, as though afraid they’d bump into Ryan and start some kind of confrontation.

Ryan’s intent, he supposed, was to find someplace where there weren’t so many people crowded together and he could think properly. Considering he was in the market district of a town, he would be hard pressed to find something like that.

The more he looked and found only more people and strange creatures acting normal, the more frantic he got, until he was running like a mad man through the crowds, shoving to the ground anyone who didn’t think to get out of his way before he got to them.

For this behavior, he was grabbed by the shirt and stopped. He tried to keep running, but they had a tight grip on him. Ryan turned around, seeing that he was being held by a man with feathered arms and claws.

When he spoke, Ryan didn’t recognize his language. He understood a few words, “fire”, “frightening”, and “calm.” But by that point, he was too confused and agitated to try and piece together what was being said to him. The man was only asking where he was running to so fast if there was no fire, and that he needed to calm down, as he was frightening the people around him.

Ryan punched the bird man in the face. His hold on him dropped, and Ryan tore off running again. He found a space between two buildings, an alleyway out of the immediate view of the others, and ducked into it nervously. He hurried to the very back, obscuring himself with the bags of garbage that had been placed there.

Ryan took deep breaths down that he was away from all the strangeness around him. ‘How did I get here?’ He questioned, thinking back. He remembered the game; his team had won by the skin of their teeth thanks to his friend Brad’s killer throwing arm. They’d left the school to party in celebration, and then he’d been standing on the edge of the street.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” He shouted to himself, slamming his fist against the brickwall he was sitting against, his frustration radiating off him like heat.

Things like this just weren’t supposed to happen. Ryan was off the belief that the only truly amazing and terrible things happened because they were made to happen. He worked hard to keep good grades, he worked hard to be a good football player, so any consequences he received should have come from his own actions, nothing else.

But this… this did not fit into Ryan’s understood mold of the world. There was no logic to this. Things weren’t just supposed to happen at random, certainly not things like this and certainly not to him.

But Ryan refused to let his belief of the world break, and forced himself to stand up. No, this wasn’t actually happening. He must have gone to the party, and he must have done something he shouldn’t have, and this, this was just him hallucinating from whatever he had taken.

On some level, Ryan knew full well that he was kidding himself. He was too conscious and aware, and the world around him was far too details for it to just be a drug trip. But he made himself believe it anyway, it was the only thing that made sense, so it had to be the truth.

He decided that it would be best to remain where he was. If he was really just seeing things, and was actually at Brad’s house right now, than he didn’t want people to see him freaking out like this. ‘Better just wait it out.’ He thought, sliding back down to a sitting position.

Ryan didn’t know how long he stayed there, just staring down the hall/alleyway at the variety of colorful creatures walking passed. If he were seeing them in a book or in a movie, he figured they’d be awesome. But actually being there, actually seeing them, left him petrified.

At some point, he dosed off. As panicked as he had been, he was still now, and the adrenaline was wearing off and leaving him drowsy. He closed his eyes, hoping it would be out of his system when he woke.

Ryan woke with a surprised yelp as pain shot through his rips from the hard kick he had taken. Looking up, he saw three figures standing above him.

All three were male, two of average height and wearing brown leather padding over their bodies. The third was massive though, seven feet tall and wrapped in a suit of chainmail armor.

“Thinking he’s all there?” One of the shorter ones asked, “or is he a loon?” He was speaking common language for the world, but all Ryan understood were the words,’he’, ‘he’s’, and ‘there.’

“Who knows,” The big one said with a shrug, taking one of the knives from his belt, “But he’s dressed real funny. Probably a foreigner. Might be worth somethin’ to the right person.”

Ryan understood none of this, but he did understand the dagger being held out against him, and he reacted long before he actually thought about it. He jumped up at the tall guy in a tackle.

It probably hurt Ryan more than it did the thief, but it did knock the big guy down. That, it seemed, was all the provocation the other two thieves needed to draw their knives and stab Ryan.

Ryan didn’t cry out so much as he just gasped at the feeling of the colt metal cutting through his gut and shoulder. They’d only been meaning to slow him down; they hadn’t been expecting his body to be as weak as it was.

Ryan dropped to the ground, shaking as he curled up into the ball, feeling the heat slowly leave his body. As he bled out, he wondered who, in the real world, had just stabbed him. He refused even in his last moments to believe where he was.


	6. Chapter 6

The mage was immediately aware that something was wrong. One moment, he had been standing in his home, and now he was somewhere else, and he became conscious all of a sudden of being inside a large building with what must have been several hundred people inside of it.

The mage did not panic, he refused to. He understood that panic lead only to confusion and confusion would be utterly useless to him. He calmly made his way out of the building, paying no mind to the comments directed about him in regards to his silver lined mage’s robes. He didn’t understand what exactly was being said, the words were in another language, but he could tell a rude comment well enough by the owner’s tone and the expression alone, most mage’s could.

Once outside, the mage saw the true extent of his problem. He was not just in some building he did not recognize, he must be across the world in some far off land that he had never seen or heard of before. He wondered how exactly a city with so many bright lights could have remained hidden from the rest of the world for so long, as well as how it was not all catching fire.

Setting these questions aside, the mage set to the task of gathering information on where he was. It wasn’t easy, he only understood a few of the words being said by those around him. A language spell helped, but he wasn’t exactly a specialist at that kind of magic, and had to re-cast it again every hour. After searching long into the night, the mage came to the conclusion that he had not only been sent to some other city, but to some other world different to his own

This was rather troubling. One could not just simply walk from one dimension to another, not even with magic. It was powerful, dangerous magic to displace someone from their native realm, and while that did raise the question of how he had appeared there in the first place, the mage was more focused on how exactly he would be able to get back to his own world.

It wouldn’t be easy, the mage knew this, but he was determined. He refused to vanish into some other world away from his family and friends, he refused to be just another forgotten silver thread rank mage that dropped away from view and was never found. He was find a way.

The mage lived for only five years in this other world. By day, he used his magic for various things, completing odd jobs and performing shows for this world’s natives, who seemed astonished by even the weakest of his spells. The money went to his housing and food, cheap though they were, as the rest went to his research at night, when he tried to find his way home again.

He trained tirelessly, learning new spells on his own, and doing so without the aid of his instructor. It was difficult, as magic seemed to move slowly through this world, crawling along as though it had clogged from lack of use. Quite troubling to one who had made their life out of harnessing it.

He had mastered the omni-linguistics spell to the point that casting it once would make him fluent in all languages for more than a month. His stealth and persuasion spells had also been mastered to a significant degree. He had done what he could to learn as much as he could on all forms of magic, but combat spells were not exactly easy to practice within a small, dingy apartment building.

As he studied, he had to do something drastic: invent his own spell, one that would bring him home. It was a combination of three kinds of spells; teleportation, summoning, and prayer magic. He spent one year mastering each, and then set to the task of combining them together into a single, unpresented spell that would, theoretically, return him home.

But there was a hitch. He couldn’t just cast it and return home. He needed something, other than his own self, that was from the world he wanted to go to, something for the spell to lock onto. The realization of this was a gut punch that nearly made the mage give up entirely at the four and a half year mark.

The mage was sick with the desire to return home. He missed his friends, he missed his family, he missed his magic instructor, and he missed his world. The smell of it, the sounds, the food of his own world. He couldn’t bare to live here in this world, so distant from his own.

But before the mage was able to carry out any violent act against his own life, as he had started planning to by this point. A discovery was made that saved his life; the discovery of something that was, in his own world, little more than a common vermin.

Slimes. There were slimes filling the sewers and spreading throughout the world. The mage knew the creature well. There was at least one breed of them living in every corner of the world, and soon, it seemed, the same would be true of this world as well.

Paranoid and wary of hope by this point, the mage feared for a moment that these slimes, as identical to those of his world as they may have been, were just a species from this world, with no ties to his own. But the shock and fear the people had for these relatively harmless creatures gave him one last spark of faith that he had found a way back to his homeland.

The mage gathered his things; his now ill-fitting silver-lined mage robes, the supplies for his new spell, and the journals with which he had recorded his experiences here in this other world.

Finding a slime was an easy matter. They filled the sewers now, and his stealth spells let him ghost right passed those positioned to guard them from people who wanted the see the creatures.

The slimes gravitated towards him immediately once he entered the sewers, sensing his magic. The mage could sense it. Most all of these slimes had been formed on this world perhaps, but their ancestor, the first slime from which they had all come, was from the same world as the mage. Even as little magic as they all had, it was enough for his spell.

A simple shield spell kept the hundreds of blue slimes from overwhelming him while he set up his spell around him, using the small energy resonating from the slimes to assign his destination.

As the spell began, and light became to fill the grimy sewers, attracted even more slimes around him until his entire shield was covered by them, the mage began to fear what would happen if none believed his story. He would be thought to have merely run from his responsibilities at best, and he would be declared mad at worst. And that was assuming that his spell even worked at all.

The spell worked at least, he realized, and he knew he would not need to fear not being believed when he descended from a inner-dimensional hole in the sky, surrounded by a cosmic aura as he landed on the desk of the grand mage in the dining hall of his magical academy.

After explaining what all had happened over the passed five years, he was quite immediately made a golden thread rank. Surviving a foreign dimension for five years and created an entirely new spell more than qualified as a decent magical exam.

The mage, after so long in another world, was home. His friends and family were informed immediately and would soon be there to see him. Within a week, word had spread, and he was the most well known and respected mage in the magical world.


	7. Chapter 7

Amy was currently resting by the base of tall, lush tree deep in the heart of the forest she had been lost in. It had been an utterly, utterly horrid day, and so far this tree seemed to be the only living thing in this forest that didn’t want to kill or eat her, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if it still attempted to at some point.

It had started when she had found herself standing in a clearing within the forest earlier in the day. She had no earthly idea how she had appeared there, but wanted to keep a level head, and so went looking for someone or something to help. Instead, she found horrible cat monsters.

There were three of the things. They looked like some kind of big cat, standing on their fours, the size of bears next to a tree, and large furry wings like bats, and long, red scorpion tails. Needless to say, Amy turned on heels and bolted off in the other direction before the manticores could notice her presence.

She wasn’t sure exactly how long she had been running, but she was completely winded when she stopped to catch her breath, her arms and legs cut and bruised from larger or sharper plants she had needed to run passed or through in order to get away from the monsters.

She figured that she probably hadn’t gotten very far though. Adrenaline rush or not, a bookworm with barely enough physical experience to technically pass the most basic of physical education classes wasn’t going to get very far in this terrain on foot without a lot of luck, which she had never had very much of.

She made a mental note to dedicate more time to physical training and survival research in the event that she made it out of this alive. Her uncle would be thrilled that she had finally developed an interest in such things, though he would probably be disappointed that she still wouldn’t hear out his theories about precisely how the world was going to inevitably end.

This moment of rest and planning for the future didn’t last very long. After a few minutes, Amy started to hear a loud, constant beating against the ground, like a series of working all striking the ground with hammers one after the other,

Before Amy could even begin to speculate on the true cause of the noise and accompanying rumbling she felt from it, she saw the cause. Or rather, she saw the causes, as they scurried passed her.

Ants. giant, gun-metal gray, armor plated, red eyed ants. They stood at roughly the height of the average pickup truck with about as much length to them as well. Each was carrying a massive mound of plant fiber, bones, mud, or something that Amy could only assume was the bloody meat of something that would soon be their food, within their massive mandibles.

Amy’s most immediate thought was that such creatures shouldn’t be able to survive. Surely the weight of their own exoskeletons would crush them. It was a thought that came to her as a reflex from the countless hours she had spent studying such things. Her second thought was much simpler.

“AHH!!” The scream caused several of the giant ants to pause and turn towards Amy. she hadn’t thought it would be possible or an ant, or any insect now that she thought about it, to glare, but that was the only description she could assign to the look the steel ants all gave as they stared her down.

Amy began to back away slowly as one of the ants put the foliage it was carried down, turned to her, and spit at her with a high pitched, disgusted shriek.

The green fluid landed in front of Amy, several drops splashing up over her body. Amy cried out in pain and fear as her skin began to burn and melt where the acidic spit landed on her. Amy frantically ran away from the creature as it picked up its foliage and continued on its way.

Amy ran, sobbing and resisting the urge to claw at the burning flesh that was spreading across her body. With her sight blurred by tears, Amy didn’t notice the tree root she tripped over until she was rolling down the hill.

She yelped in pain and curled up into a ball reflexively as her side collided with something hard and dense, sending a painful shock wave through her entire body and bringing on more tears.

Amy would have been more than content to simply lay there, sobbing in a defensive ball on the ground until the pain stopped, if it stopped. But upon hearing an unsettlingly close hissing sound, she forced herself to look up and take stock of what was directly next to and above her.

To her dread, the thing that she had hit at the bottom of the hill was the rough, scaled side of a large, jet black snake coiled at the bottom of the hill, waiting for prey to come near it.

Amy didn’t have it in her to scream, just scrambled back to her feet and did all she could to climb her way back up the hill before the serpent creature could try to capture and eat her like she feared it would.

It was her thin, unappetizing form that saved her life there, as the snake saw no reason to eat something with so little meat on its bones. Hardly worth bothering for such a small meal. But it had woken the snake, and that was grounds enough for some sort of punishment.

The snake lifted its long tail, driving the spiked tip of it into Amy’s leg, cutting into it deep. Amy cried out in pain, but didn’t stop climbing her way up the hill, refusing to be stopped by the snake’s attack.

She reached the top of the hill and dragged herself to the first flat ground she could find. There, she laid her back against a tree, trying not to scream from the pain in her leg, afraid it would attract more danger.

Now, here she was, laying against the large tree, trying to avoid the realization that she was bleeding out and probably poisoned. She recalled the three books she had read on first aid. None of them had given her any advice on stings from giant monster snakes.

Amy froze up in fear again when she felt two hands grab around her stomach. It was never wise to linger by a dryad’s tree, as the nature spirits had a habit of grabbing those who did and keeping them.

Amy struggled as much as she could with what little energy she still had, but she began to give in when she felt the solid numbness filling her limbs upon being pulled into the tree. The bark of the tree spread across her skin, and her vision blurred as it sealed itself around her.

The one thing she could vaguely feel was the arms of the dryad around her, hugging her. She wasn’t dead, but she couldn’t reasonably call her new existence within the tree living either. She couldn’t care anymore though, she was just glad that the pain had stopped.


	8. Chapter 8

The elemental spirit appeared in this new world dazed and confused. It was so rare that it was joined together as a single spirit, when more often it was separated into its sex baser forms. Normally such a thing could not happen unless they all joined together willingly, which they had not. 

Curses often afflicted them all; if one spirit became cursed or corrupted, it would spread to the others and force them to join together whether they wanted to or not in order to purge themselves of the impurity.

But they did not appear to be cursed now, simply transported somewhere else. The elemental had heard stories of spells that could send things to over realms, and it supposed that the spiritual link between the spirits had caused them all to be affected by whatever it was that had sent the first to this world. They had all appeared in the same spot, and so had joined back together.

The elemental spirit still did not know what is what that had caused it to appear in this world, but that was not something for it to contemplate. Content with the knowledge that none of the spirits were cursed or corrupted, it separated into its six baser forms.

The six spirits were shocked by their change in location. Both the physical and spiritual properties around them were completely alien. The fire, darkness, and air spirits nearly went into a panic, but the earth spirit kept them all calm so they could think through what to do.

“None of us had any physical attachments in the realm we have left behind, correct?” The earth spirit questioned. The spirits talked among themselves, determining that none of them did. It was not unheard of for elemental spirits to form attachments, make friends, build homes, even have families with mortals, but it was frowned upon, as it took time away from the job, and so none of these elemental spirits had ever bothered with it.

“Well then, we’ve no reason to fret over this change. We shall do here what we did before. We are elemental spirits. We will maintain the elements and prevent disaster.” The earth elemental said. The other five agreed, and put their senses together so that they could search the world for the many places they could each go.

The earth spirit moved down, passing through the dirt. It was quite an effortless process for its form of spirit, a rapid process of possessing and exiting the individual bits of earth so fast it never slowed as he passed through them. In only a few hours time, it reached the core of the planet, phasing into it, becoming one with it, one with the entire planet itself.

The water spirit did something similar with the ocean, connecting to the first body of water it found and gradually spreading throughout it, becoming one with the oceans of the world. Where in their own world, every ocean was cut off from the next, either magically or physically, here the borders separating the oceans were rarely physical ones, and without even needing to employ the help of any mortal creatures, the water spirit was watching over the majority of the planet’s water.

The air spirit took to living high up in the sky, taking residence in the stratosphere. Its spiritual form took to looking like many clouds that gradually drifted across the world. In some places the clouds were only one in a vast expanse of empty air, whereas elsewhere the spirit had hundreds of its clouds all clumped together. There were no rival air spirits setting up territory, and so the air spirit had no limit, and it could regulate the world’s air everywhere in the world at once.

The fire spirit took up a dwelling within a flame that had burned for many years, two in fact. The Eternal Flame and the Door to Hell both became the vessels for the fire spirit, while it lined itself to the other heated locations through volcanic passageways the earth spirit had carved out. Where before these supposedly eternal flames lasted only a few weeks or months before burning out, now they truly burned eternal, not fading even when some humans attempted to put them out.

The light and darkness spirits were constantly moving, circling each other across the world. One remained always within the light of day, the other remained always with the dark of night. While there, their forms washed over all that was covered by light and darkness respectively, letting them watch over it all. They occasionally met to speak and share stories at dawn or dusk, but they only truly had time together during an eclipse.

The physical forms taken by the spirits became known as anomalies across the globe. Hundreds of thousands of people reported seeing them. Faces and even full bodies sitting in or on the clouds in the sky. 

Women in the water, walking across it, or seemingly dozens of feet beneath it, all with the same description, everywhere in the world. Men seen in bonfires, in the Door to Hell, in the Eternal flame, and walking across mountain ranges in a suit of fire. Woman reported to be made either of shadows or of light, dancing across the sky directly in front of the sun or the moon. 

And a man supposedly made of or covered by dirt and stone appearing in hundreds of places across the world, warning people of upcoming tremors or quakes or helping in the process of earth moving projects being conducted by humans.

The stories were many and well known, many made up after the fact, but quite a few of them true. The spirits didn’t mind. Evidently this world simply didn’t understand the dealings of the new spirits that would be helping them keep their world in balance.

They did start to mind when the governments of the world began to get involved, evidently untrusting of the changes to their planet, as slow and beneficial as they were. 

The more they got involved, studying and even threatening the physical forms of the spirits, the more worried they got. Eventually, the spirits decided that it may be a good idea to formally introduce themselves. That, though, is a story for another time.


	9. Chapter 9

“Are ye daft between the ears? Back to work!” The muscle bound captain shouted at Damien, throwing a punch that connected with his jaw and knocked him to the floor; damp wood of a ship. 

Damien had to fight off his immediate instinct to give the cracked-toothed sailor a punch to his own jaw, but like he had done all day, he simply nodded and went down to the paddles to help the others keep the ship moving.

Damien had appeared on the deck of the ship at around dawn, and had been put to work instantly. 

His clothes and speech had let the pirates of the ship to assume he was a foreigner, which in turn led them to the assumption that he was prisoners they had taken from their various raids, which were all supposed to remain below deck.

Damien had been dumbstruck when he had found himself on a ship, already out to see with no land in sight no less. 

As nervous and frightened of the situation as he was, he wasn’t one to act without thinking, and when the big lads with swords and axes ordered him to go below deck, he had the good sense to listen and follow the orders he was given as though everything was normal.

He had found what must have been hundreds of people below deck, all with their ankles shackled to the floor and their wrists chained to the poles that they had to constantly move in order to keep the ship moving across the sea with any control.

These, Damien realized in horror, were slaves. Some likely stolen from down enemies, some probably stolen directly from their homes and families, all forced to work on the ship or face punishment and death if they disobeyed the will of the captain.

Damien was a believer in fate, and when he saw this, all these people, tired and beaten and dressed only in the torn rags that the pirates above had given to them, he believed he had been brought here for a reason. He was still unclear on how exactly he had arrived here, but that didn’t matter anymore. Right now, what mattered was getting all these people free.

He had made a few trips above deck, and had only actually been caught twice. The ship didn’t actually have a spot for them, so all he had to do was sit down between two others and the pirates wouldn’t be able to see that he wasn’t shackled in place, and he could head up again later. 

The punch the captain had given him had hurt, and still did as he sat back down, but he had gotten the information he needed.

The crew above, the actually pirates, weren’t very many in numbers. What’s more, they had no firearms that Damien could see, only swords, knives, and axes. A little looking had let him find the rooms where the weapons were stored, and he had started to form a plan.

The prisoners were quite weak, thin and malnourished, and always weak from all the work that needed to be done. But they outnumbered the pirates by a wide margin, nearly ten to one if Damien’s count was right. If he could get them weapons, they could fight back, and overwhelm the pirates with numbers alone.

It wasn’t a terribly clever strategy, but for someone with no combat experience that didn’t involve a computer screen, it wasn’t bad at all. There was just one hitch in the whole thing, the others all seemed to be too afraid to attempt such a thing, even if it meant freedom.

The pirates had a relic aboard that evened out the language, making it possible for everyone on board to understand everyone else, that way they could order their prisoners without needing to learn any new language. And when Damien explained his plan, they all looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Ye be quite mad with a plan like that,” One said, “we may have more by way of bodies, but I don’t be believin’ that’s enough to overthrow a crew a seaborne conquerors. They’d kill us all.”

“Even if they do, what life are they taking away? A life of working yourselves to death for nothing? Wouldn’t it at least be better to die trying? You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.” Damien said.

The prisoner sighed, “Ye may be right in this, but many fear even a merciful death,” He rubbed the scars left just below where the shackles dug into his wrists, “I hold some kinship with the others here. If ye can unbind us, I can see that ye don’t go into battle alone.”

Damien smiled, “Thank you. I promise you I won’t fail, I already know where the keys and weapons are.” He said, stepping away from where he sat with the others, “I’ll be back before long.”

During his many trips topside, he had found not only the weapons, but the keys. The latter would be harder to get, as they were with the captain, but the weapons, those would be easy. Damien went above deck, and set to work.

His plan went wrong immediately however, when he found that the pirates were all fighting another crew of pirates, their ship having boarded the current one, and their numbers much greater. Damien thought fast, grabbing a sword and joining the battle.

All he actually did in terms of fighting was push one guy away from the captain, who was now dead with an axe in his skull. 

Damien refused to focus on how disturbing the sight was, grabbing the keys off of him and rushing down to the prisoners, freeing them.

He led several of them above deck, showing them where the weapons were, and suddenly the crew was no longer being overwhelmed. 

The prisoners were weak and inexperienced, but with numbers and weapons they were able to drive the offending crew off by working together.

What’s more, now that the crew weakened, the prisoners, with their far greater numbers, attacked, revolved, and with Damien leading them (though all he really did was steal the captain’s sword to show who was in charge now and constantly shout war cries) they won control of the ship.

The former pirates were forced below deck, as someone needed to work the paddles to make the ship move, and now they were heading towards shore. 

By the time they would get there, they would attacked twice more, both times Damien, the new captain, had the enemies sent below deck. 

They were pirates, so there was nothing wrong with having them act as prisoners. They also took treasure from the ships so the prisoners would have wealth when they reached land.

By the time they all reached land, however, they no longer wanted to leave the ship. They weren’t prisoners now, they were the sailors, they were pirates, and Damien was their captain.


	10. Chapter 10

The dark mage was not certain what had gone wrong, but was completely certain that something had. Just moments before he had been meditating in his layer, contemplating the next spells he would learn and use to combat the evils of the clearly corrupt kingdoms. Now, he was standing in the middle of a street.

There were large, metal contraptions all around him, and one in particular standing directly in front of him. At first, the loud and rather annoying sound coming from them made the dark mage believe that these things were alive, some sort of metal golem with wheels perhaps. Then he saw the people within them however, and realized that these were machines being operated.

The human within barked at him in an irritating, unknown language, but clearly was insulting him. The dark mage held out his hand, and a bolt of purple lightning fired from it, hitting the vehicle and sending the whole thing up in an explosion of fire and purple smoke.

The dark mage found that spells like these were the best for teaching manners to the rude. There was screaming now, but the dark mage was used to hearing that whenever he used his magic in public.

As the dark mage looked around, seeing the many tall buildings around him and many strange devices, he figured that he could make the best of wherever he was now. He could purge this land of its impurities just as he had been with his own.

Then, when this land was pure, he would find some way to return to his home with even more resources and weapons to purify it as well. That had been the point of his life for far too long now.

He refused to give up on it now just because the buildings around him had changed in size. He would show the world the value of the darker ways, show them it’s power, and if they refused to learn, he would do away with them as well.

Three more bolts of magic lightning killed ten more people, and a necromancy spell made all their bodies rise back up, damaged but still useful, and now his new servants. Undead were much easier to work with and control.

The following day was a siege of the town. The dark mage’s magic and the might of his soldiers, which grew in numbers with everyone killed by them, overwhelmed the people.

Guns did nothing to stop the undead soldiers, even a bullet to the head didn’t kill the mindless drones. They could only be stopped by their bodies being completely destroyed, which happened to perhaps one of the dozens, even hundreds of them.

The dark mage himself was protected by a shielding spell he had cast, and none of the weapons the humans here were armed with were strong enough to break through it alone, and none of them could focus a coordinated attack on him without getting mobbed by the magic drones.

Person after person, building after building, block after block. People either kneeled to him and joined his ranks, or were killed and joined his ranks. Buildings burned, the streets filled with ash and blood, and by the end of the day, the dark mage had earned control of the entire town through systematically destroying anyone who came to defend it.

Even the soldiers in the large armored weapons could do nothing to stop him. It was almost comedic how desperately they attempted to break the dark mage’s hold, and how quickly they fell.

Contact with the outside world was gone completely. The dark mage wasn’t sure how the otherworldly technology worked, nor did he particularly care to find out. He would do away with it wherever he found it and replaced it with his own magic.

The start of this was the dark mage repurposing a school building as an academy. Those in his ranks that were not dead drones, few though they were, would be taught dark magic.

Or at least he would attempt to teach them, but for some reason it didn’t seem to take with them. The dark mage supposed they were all just dense, which didn’t really surprise him much based on how they’d been fighting him.

It was the knowledge of these humans’ ineptitude at magic that convinced the dark mage to look to the rest of the world. The dark mage began to wonder what else this realm had to offer aside from space and people, where he would go and what he would conquer. The world was full of possibility.

He certainly wanted to know the meaning of the bright light in the sky descending towards his town. It smashed against the shield he had put around the town, the force of it actually breaking the field and the energy of it spreading through the town.

The energy began burning through building and bodies faster than most of the dark mage’s spells had in a matter of seconds as the dark mage watched in utter dumbfounded awe of its might.

Even the dark mage’s personal shield spell broke almost instantly when the blast hit, leaving nothing behind but a burned imprint of his form on the wall he had been standing in front of.


	11. Chapter 11

Jenna utterly refused to be afraid of her current situation, regardless of how bad things seemed to be. She didn’t care how miraculous things seemed, there had to be a logical reason for it all, there had to be.

People didn’t just suddenly appear in the middle of graveyards, it just didn’t happen. There had been reports of people appearing in other places sure, but that, she felt, was more from people trying to excuse poor behavior on their part than from actual phenomenon. No, Jenna couldn’t have simply spawned here in this graveyard, and she believed she had reasoned out what had really happened.

She could remember quite clearly her friend Alison asking her to go out with her and her friends after school. It had been a token attempt from Alison, as Jenna always declined such things in favor of studying and preparing for college.

‘Something different must have happened this time though,’ Jenna thought as she walked through the white fog so thick that it obscured the dead grass beneath her feet, ‘this time, I must have agreed to go.’

Yes, that made sense. It wasn’t exactly a perfect theory, as she had no memory of doing so and had quite clear memories of herself at home, pouring over her advanced ACT preparation books, but she figured that the latter memories were actually of a previous night and the former memories must have been blotted out by whatever kind of activities she had likely been talked into.

She was annoyed by how unlikely the outcome was, but the alternative was that Jenna had simply appeared here in a graveyard at sunset. Being a believer in Occam’s Razor, she was forced to believe that she had wandered her way into this graveyard while either drunk, high, or some combination of the two.

She couldn’t believe how stupid she must have been to end up here, but she decided she would find her way home, hope she could convince her parents that she had been safe the entire time, and get her daily life back onto its routine in spite of whatever she had done.

Her train of thought was interrupted though, when she saw movement in the fog, around her, and turned around to face whoever it was coming from. At first, Jenna thought she was about to be greeted by one of her friends that had stumbled in here with her, perhaps even Alison. She hoped it was Alison, as she intended to scold her.

Instead, the being that rose up before her chilled her blood into a thick, frozen slush. The figure looked quite human in shape, but the skin was dead, gray, stretched over something ghastly, and in some places entirely missing, showing cracked, white bones. The skin of the fingers seemed to stop long before the actually bones did, giving them the appearance of large claws.

A long, slick, sickly purple tongue hung down from a jaw that seemed almost unhinged, filled with jagged stone-like teeth and dripping with an oil-black slime like saliva. Mud, grime, and other substances Jenna’s mind refused to classify coated the creature’s body along the left side, whole dead grass, leaves, and other decaying plant-life clung to the right.

The creature wore no clothing, but with its exposed ribcage and rotting body, Jenna couldn’t place the gender. It’s sunken eyes, leaking with a grime similar to the kind that coated its body, focused in on Jenna.

Jenna screamed at the top of her lungs, a sound that the creature, a ghoul, replied to with a gurgling, deafening roar of its own. Jenna, her logic now forgotten, turned on her heels and took off in the opposite direction.

The ghoul let out a sound reminiscent of laughter and followed. Ghouls were much faster than one would expect any undead creature to be. Ghouls were spontaneously animated corpses, their strength and speed twice that of what the body’s had been in its first life. Its body was held together by little more than naturally occurring dark magic and its skin, weak and lifeless though it seemed, was harder than the average set of steel armor.

Jenna did not know of these facts, nor was she aware of the several ways even someone like her could easily set the corpse back to a state of rest. All she understood at the moment was escaping the nightmare creature behind her. She ran as fast and as far as she could, and believed she could see a large brass gate, the edge of the graveyard.

She raced towards the gate, her legs burning and her heart pounding practically in her throat as she put every ounce of her energy into springing for the bars.

Human adrenaline and willpower can achieve a lot, some feats made by this combination impressive even to a world full of magic. But it just couldn’t close the gap in speed between her and the ghoul, and she was tackled to the ground when the ghoul finally pounced on her.

She yelped in pain as she hit the ground, her face scratched on the rocks in the grass. The ghoul’s long tongue wrapped around her throat, constricting her breathing as the toxins within its saliva worked their way into her system. The strike that did the most immediate damage however, was the ghoul’s claws being driven through her back.

Even with all this, it was still another five minutes before Jenna lost consciousness. Five minutes of poison making her body lock up at every joint, her lungs struggling burning for the oxygen they were being denied, and her body being rended by a ghoul who planned to consume her.


	12. Chapter 12

Orcs were not very intelligent in comparison to most of the creatures considered to be fully sentient. They could only learn to use small, uncomplicated weapons like daggers, clubs, and the occasional short sword.

The only magic they could ever hope to learn was a sort of tribal magic specific to orcs learned by their shaman. Even their language skills fell below that of the average goblin, consisting mostly of grunts and growls that relied more on context than substance.

Granted, half orcs could still be just as skilled and intelligent as other humans, if a little shorter and quicker to frustration. But full blooded orcs were unwise to every fight alone. Their power laid in their numbers. They lived in large colonies, and always left in groups of at least three.

But this orc, dressed in the leather clothing it had stolen from a human and modified into an outfit for itself, and equipped with a belt of daggers and a club at its side, was all alone on the street corner where he appeared.

The orc was smart enough to know that something was wrong though. The most immediate problem was that the three other orc hunters that had been with him before were now nowhere in sight, nor could even even sense them anywhere in the area.

Orcs were not good with deductive reasoning skills. The only idea the orc could come up with explain its current situation was that it must have been the work of human mage magic, meddling in orc business.

Most orcs did not like mages, didn’t like them one little bit. Even the orc shaman hated human mages and their confusing, strange magic use. So naturally, the thought that this was happening because of a human mage’s plot was an angering one.

The orc took the club from its size and swung the it hard at the kneecap of the mage who had been standing next to him since he appeared without his kin, pretending to be unaware of his presence.

The man did not look like a mage. He wore no mage robes, carried no mage items, and the orc could sense no magic from it. This, the orc decided, was just another mage trick.

The force of the club’s impact practically destroyed the man’s knee entirely, and he dropped to the ground in agony, screaming. As painful as it was, he may have been to accept it if the orc had not them swung the club at his skull.

The first strike knocked the man unconscious and cracked his skull, the second swing cracked his skull open. The third reduced what little solidity the man’s head had had into a broken, squashed mess. That was one mage defeated, the orc decided, now for the next.

The other people who had been standing on the sidewalk, unaware until the violence started of the orc’s presence, had begun screaming and scattering in different directions. The orc chose the next mage to kill at random.

The orc took one of the many knives from its belt and jumped after the next mage it targeted, stabbing him twice in the throat before he fell to the ground and twice more after it had.

One of the bracer mages ran forward at the orc faster than he had been expecting him to, throwing a kick at the orc that send him hurtling into the street. Before he had even hit the ground of the street, a speeding car collided with the orc’s body, doing far more than any kick to the chest could have.

This had not been something that James Sherwin, the man who had just punted an orc into the street, had been expecting to happen, and was just amazing timing on the part of the poor driver who hadn’t even stopped, assuming they’d just slammed into an unlucky animal of some kind. It did however give James the ability to look both clever and brave were he to survive.

The orc was not killed however. Its body was severely damaged, certainly, but it stood from the street, using its club like a crutch. It hobbled back towards the mages, towards James, drawing a serrated knife as it did so.

Even as short and clearly hurt as the orc was, the sight of the green skinned, jagged tooth, black eyes creature approaching them with many knives strapped to its body was a frightening one, especially now that it seemed to be walking off something that would have killed most humans.

The only ones who didn’t flee were those who were frozen in place with fear. Even James the orc kicker’s bravery began to fade as the creature approached, and he considered turning and running like the others, thinking that outrunning the creature in its current state might be possible.

Thankfully, James would not need to. The owner of the store they were standing in front of had gone for his gun the moment this had begun, and now the orc was blasted back as the bullet ripped through his body.

As the orc’s life began to fade away, he wondered if his kin had had better luck hunting than he had.


	13. Chapter 13

Greg was currently having the time of his life. He had been a little confused and even worried when he had first appeared, sure, but he had long since given up on trying to figure out where he was or how he had ended up there. He was having far too much fun with his situation to question what caused it.

Greg had always been something of a social butterfly, but never by choice; so he wasn’t exactly upset to be by himself. He had learned the mechanics of being charismatic and kinds; memorized the phrases and the gestures. He’d never actually seen the point in it though. He couldn’t find the value in friendship no matter how he tried to search for it, and eventually he’d just stopped searching.

His friends wouldn’t have ever been able to guess his inner apathetic nature. His life was calm, stable, and happy. There was little to no points of chaos or conflict in his day to day life; and his life was more or less the ideal one. And for years by now, he had absolutely hated it.

He had longed for so long for ways to relieve the stress that built up in him from living so peacefully for so long. He had taken first to aggressive sports such as wrestling, then to toying his with ‘friends’.

A white lie here, a misinterpretation there, a rumor in between with just enough deniability to keep the trail off of him, and he could sit back and watch the chaos spread. It was hilarious.

But none of that had been as much fun as Greg was currently having within the dungeon. He had been laying in his bed listening to a fight between his parents over whether or not his father had been cheating (of course he hadn’t, but a few scandalis items placed around by Greg had been leading his mother to think otherwise for weeks now) when he had found himself on a cold stone floor.

Looking around the torchlit room, he found a wooden ladder going up, another on the other end of the room going down, and a carved letter one in the wall next to a series of weapons strapped to the walls like sports equipment on a rack.

Dungeons like these were all over the place in this world. The toughest might have over a hundred floors to them and the easiest as few as three. All of them though, had floors filled with certain kinds of monsters and a powerful guardian monsters at the bottom protecting a treasure horde.

Greg took a few knives from the wall, as well as a map of the dungeon and, most importantly, a large battle-axe, lighter than he had been expecting by how it had been forged and deadly sharp.

Greg had decided to take the ladder leading down, and was met with a large, gray furred, feral wolf. Greg reflexively swung the axe at the wolf then it pounced at him, and the axe blade cleaved through the wolf’s side, knocking it to the floor of the dungeon where it died.

Greg grinned ear to ear as he saw this, taking a twisted glee in the killing. He eagerly moved down the next ladder, going deeper into the dungeon to find more to fight and kill. Greg had tried turning to violent video games in the past, but none of them had ever done the trick, as to his dismay, not even the gorest of games could turn someone into an actual psychopath.

But this, this was a real rush. He cut through all the wolves on the floor and opened the chest at the end of it. He had gotten only one shallow bite on his leg, and earned a set of leather armor for it.

Greg put on the armor and moved down to the next floor. The floor below was filled with jumping corpses, a variant of the standard undead that attacked exclusively by leaping at them and clamping down with their serrated fangs.

Greg took a bit more damage on this floor, as the battle axe was not the ideal weapon for dealing with jumping corpses. The leather armor proved useful, saving him from a few attacks he hadn’t been able to get out of the way of in time.

The next floor had had wild boars, then wild cats, then small ground dragons, then a few revenants. With each new floor, he earned something new, and by the time he reached the last floor, he was wearing bronze armor with a crossbow, magic potion, and an enchanted hammer slung over his back.

His clothes were soaked through with blood, only ten percent of which was his own. Most of the damage he had taken had been healed by one of the many potions he had found.

The final monster appeared to be a golem; an eight foot tall man made of clay wielding a polearm was the one thing standing between Greg and a twenty foot high pile of golden coins and priceless gems.

Greg dipped one of the arrows into his one remaining potions, which he had learned was an explosive elixir, thankfully before he had tried to drink it. He fired at the golem, blasting off a part of its chest before running at it with the enchanted hammer to finish the now prone stone man off.

The hammer collided with the existing damaged area causing cracks to spread across the golem’s body until it crumbled into nothing at Greg’s feet, the magic leaving the hammer and entering the target like an injection of harmful energy.

Greg ran passed the pile of broken, lifeless clay towards the first treasure chest without a second thought. It never occurred to him that the golem had been much too weak to be the final guardian monster, nor did he notice how far ahead of the other treasure this treasure chest was.

He saw the teeth lining the edges of the treasure chest, but never had the chance to put two and two together before the mimic, a carnivorous, shapeshifting spirit in the form of a treasure chest, snapped its mouth shut. Its sharp fangs passed effortlessly through Greg’s neck, biting his head off before he finished processing the thought of how rich he would be with all the treasure.

The mimic opened its mouth again to take in the rest of Greg’s now dead body, its magic allowing it to digest all of it in a matter of moments before it closed up again to rest.


	14. Chapter 14

The revenant had no idea what was going on or why. Granted, revenants were very rarely fully away of much of anything. They were known for their intense tunnel visioned that caused them to focus on their target and nothing else until the target was dead.

But considering that the revenant’s target had just vanished into thin air, he was forced to take note and become aware of the surroundings. Upon doing so, he quickly realized that it wasn’t his target that had gone away, it was the revenant himself who had been sent off; and the massive walking corpse was now standing in the middle on a dark alleyway.

Revenants, all things considered, were relatively smart in comparison to most other undead. Nowhere near the intelligence level of the speaking zombie, which was basically just a normal person who remained alive in a rotting body after death with a few cannibalistic tendencies, but far above the mindlessness of the gray shambling walking dead most commonly known as undead.

Revenants could learn to use a variety of weapons. Given enough time, it’s believed that there’s no weapon it couldn’t learn to use. If the revenant had been a mage or magically oriented person in life, they could even learn to use some forms of magic.

They retained all knowledge of how society operated, and so long as they spoke to no one, kept their bodies covered, and drew no attention to themselves, they could hide in plain sight pretty effortlessly.

That being said, they often couldn’t comprehend anything that wouldn’t lead in any way to the murder of whoever it was that they thought responsible for their own death. Even when it came to the lust for revenge, they weren’t always logical; as to some extent they considered almost everyone to be responsible, as they hadn’t been there trying to prevent it.

As such, the chances of a revenant understanding why and how it had appeared in a random alleyway in another world were as near to zero as probability could allow. But he was still angry, as he always was and had been since his untimely death and reincarnation into a revenant.

It was this anger that led the revenant to its next course of thought. If he killed everyone here, then surely there would be no one left except for his target: his good for nothing sister who had been out enjoying herself in town when a plague spirit had descended on him and claimed his life.

It made perfect sense to the revenant, and he exited the alleyway, grabbing the unfortunate man who had been standing in front of it and dragging him down the alley. This man had done nothing to save the revenant, so he saw nothing wrong with snapping his next with a quick, powerful movement and taking his large coat to conceal himself.

The revenant snuck from the alley, his new coat hiding his rotted body. He still had his axe, the one he’d planned to use on his sister, but he understood that now he would need much more than that.

The revenant found the woods near the town and hid within them. He spent the following several days, which passed to his as quickly as minutes to anyone else, doing what he could to watch and learn how this society worked. Once he could hide within it, he could continue his mission.

His brain, empty of anything other than the desire to retain all the important, helpful information, absorbed it like a sponge, and in only two weeks he had learned everything he needed to know.

After that, the revenant went back into town, walked calmly to the bank with his axe, and proceeded to slaughter everyone inside. His skin was thick enough to prevent any of the bullets from damaging him, and he was much faster than one would expect.

He took as much money from the bank as he could, and used it all to fund his personal arsenal. Firearms, explosives, blades, anything and everything he thought might be useful in the art of murder.

On top of that, he purchased supplies to build himself a base of operations to work out of, a wooden shack in the woods. And with all of this taken care of, he could finally begin his rampage.

By day, the revenant was docile and calm, only killing any humans that entered the woods. By nightfall, he went into the town to kill anyone and everyone. The revenant kept a minimum of ten dead per night, with an average of twenty. Some stealthy, some brutal.

After only a week the revenant had a reputation. His shack was found easily and investigated by the police, but armed with only their guns, they were no match. The next morning all six of their bodies were left at the edge of the woods as a warning.

This repeated itself a few times until serious action was taken. A ten man team with heavy weapons entered the woods to handle the revenant, who had been just about to leave for the nightly slaughter.

The standoff between the revenant and the soldiers lasted five full hours. The high caliber firearms were able to do actual damage to the revenant’s body, and it was finally killed when a grenade was thrown into the shack.

The shack went up in flames, and the revenant was finally at rest.


	15. Chapter 15

Sasha was more angry than she was afraid of anything else. Sasha had always had problems with anger, but she felt that her reasons were justified here. She decided that she could use her anger productively instead of just burning herself out with it. She could channel it towards finding her way back home.

Sasha was currently located in a swamp. She didn’t know how she had gotten there, why she was there, or if she was meant to do anything specific. All she could say for certain was that she was getting angrier and angrier with every step into the thick much she was forced to make.

Sasha figured she might not have been so angry were it not where she had been prior to her appearance in the swamp. She had been just returning from a date with her boyfriend Jack, arriving at his house.

She had stepped out of his car, and had been following him towards his house; and then she had been marching through the mud. Whatever was responsible for this, Sasha thought, had terrible timing.

Sasha had spent the first ten minutes of her time in the swamp scum hurling every insult and swear in her vocabulary in every direction, wanting to make extra certain that whoever was responsible for this heard her and knew that if they ever got within range of her, she’d rip them apart.

There had been no response other than the popping sound of putrid bubbles in the swamp water. Continuing the tirade under her breath, Sasha took off as quickly as she could.

It was her thought process that, if she had been placed in the middle of the swamp, then any direction she took would lead her out of it. And if she had actually been in the center of the swamp, she would have been correct.

Unfortunately, Sasha had appeared in the northernmost part of the swamp. She had been less than a mile from the edge of the swamp, and was now making her way towards the center.

Now, the swamps of this world were mostly docile. The biggest threat to someone traveling through them was disease, which could be handled with a bath the moment someone left. Most monsters within the swamp that were actually dangerous were too few, too slow moving, and too difficult to wake to be considered any kind of threat.

But Sasha didn’t know this. She figured that the biggest threat to her would be an alligator, which she would likely be able to see coming when it broke the surface and give her time to leg it in the opposite direction.

As such, Sasha saw no issue with continuing to rant and rave to herself as she walked through the swamp, stomping her feet at every presenting opportunity and kicking rocks and broken tree limbs into the water.

It was just a method of relieving her aggression she thought, and it couldn’t actually be harmful to her at all. Sasha managed to do what most thought impossible and wake nearly everything in the swamp. After an hour, only the spirit based beings still slept as she passed.

A web of creeping roots tried to ensnare her, but she moved too fast for them to get her as she soldiered on through the swamp. A series of leeches tried to latch onto her but her violent movements kicked up the toxic sludge in the water, killing the leeches on her before she even noticed them.

The bubbling slime got close to actually taking her down. Its chemical secretion caused her to slip and faceplant in the mud. Alone it was harmless, and the bubbling slime would need to move in and envelop her before it could actually hurt her. 

When it tried however, Sasha went into something of a tantrum, yelling and flailing, and inadvertently punting the majority of the bubble slime into the water, where it began to dissolve. Sasha got up and walked off in anger, having earned one of the world’s least honorable kills.

The final creature that attempted to kill Sasha was a kappa, a humanoid swamp creature with elements of reptilian and amphibious creatures across its body, giving it an unearthly look even to the people of this world. 

The creature rose when Sasha reached the next section of water. Sasha saw it rise out of the muck, putrid water dripping down its gnarled body as its fangs and claws became visible to Sasha. 

Sasha screamed in fear as the Kappa moved towards her, this being the first monster she was actually away of. She backed away as the creature advanced on her aggressively, intent on killing her and dragging her below water to feed; if only to get the noises she was creating throughout the swamp to stop.

Before it could however, a shining spear punched through the creature’s chest, killing it almost instantly. The traveling adventurer the spear belonged to looked over Sasha as the kappa fell dead into the water.

He noticed her odd clothing, and said, in rehearsed phrased, seeming unused to speaking the language that Sasha was capable of understanding, “Follow me, I’ve got a mage who can help you get home.”


	16. Chapter 16

Praton was sincerely confused by his current surroundings. Praton was a warrior, a brave adventurer who had gone on many quests in his days and believed he had many quests ahead of him still.

He was most well known for the battle where he had slain the great sea monster Ca’ganalish, a ghastly demonic serpent with breath of acid and clawed tendrils that sprung from its scales. 

He had many other feats to his name however, and his famous imperial armor, shield, and sword were well known across dozens of different kingdoms he had traveled to, either in person or in rumor.

The last thing he could recall was training in the castle courtyard. He had earned the respect of the royal family after defeating a band of bandits that had been plaguing them, and had been permitted to stay in the castle for a few days before he rode off once more.

But now, he was no longer in the courtyard. He still had his sword in his hand, still had his armor and shield, but the dawn of sunrise was gone, replaced with dull gray dusk. Where before there had been lesser spirits tending to the plants in the garden, now there were only strangely dressed people standing nearby, watching him in confusion, pointing and whispering.

Praton was currently in a parking lot, and as it was not the parking lot of a convention center, his current equipment had caught some less than favorable attention from those in the area when he’d appeared.

He questioned them as to where he was, but they offered him no answers. They seemed unable to understand his words. Stranger still, they seemed to be afraid of him.

Did they not recognize him by his armor? That was not something Praton was used to. He supposed it logical that there existed small, hidden away civilizations where his name and insignia were not known, but how had be appeared here? For what purpose was this happening to him?

Revenge, Praton decided. In his adventures, the warrior had made many enemies, some still alive and angry, some possessors of powerful magic. His party’s mage had always warded off magical interferences before, which forced his foes to confront him directly in fights he was sure to win.

Praton’s mage, the warrior realized, must have either chosen a very, very poor time to become distracted, or been caught off guard by an attack from the same foes responsible for sending Praton here.

Praton decided he would need to find a mage and return to Indegeiss castle immediately. He questioned the people before him for the location of a mage, even small towns had at least one living in or nearby it. 

Again the people seemed confused by him, and quickly hurried away from him, some even seeming to be afraid of his presence near them. Praton wasn’t sure what to make of this behavior.

Knowing he would never find his way back to the castle without assistance, Praton ran after them. He only required a little help from them, but if they were this afraid, they must have been expecting Praton to hurt them. If they were expecting such a thing they must have been in league with whomever had sent him to this strange place.

The people scattered in many directions, and the one’s Praton ended up following hid themselves away inside of a building, locking the door before Praton could follow them inside of it.

But Praton would not be stopped by a mere door. A single slash of his sword cleaved through the door, the force of it sending the two halves of the door flying across the room within. The people inside the room screamed, but Praton was stopped before he could enter by a man in some sort of uniform.

The man carried some device, a relic for protection it looked like, but he held it levelled at Praton threateningly. It was some sort of weapon Praton realized, reacting on instinct and the belief that this man to was aligned with the dark forces conspiring against him and his party.

He swung his sword, the energy it let off cutting into the man in the uniform from several feet away. He let out a cry of pain as he dropped his weapon and collapsed to the ground, bleeding from the gash that now ran across the length of his torso.

Now though, Praton saw the many other people wearing similar uniforms, and had just enough time to raise his shield before the hail of bullets from the others rained down on him.

His shield blocked the bullets, as did his armor. Praton waited for the uniformed squadron to stop firing, then rushed forward, driving his sword through one while slamming his shield into another to knock him to the ground.

In a matter of minutes, all of them laid dead. But more, he saw, were coming. A strange ball rolled over to him, exploding in a bright light that blinded him, sending him into more of a panic than he’d been in to begin with.

Praton swung one last time, unable to see where he was swinging as the officers opened fire. His sword separated a car into two uneven pieces before the bullets hit him, cutting through his face, and ending one of the most powerful warriors of another world.


	17. Chapter 17

Meghan had started the day in a haze of blind panic, but she had calmed down since. When she had appeared, she had been standing just inches from the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean with no idea of how she had gotten there.

She had taken off running full tilt in the other direction, away from the cliff edge and down the hill towards the flat ground. She didn’t recognize any of it, and was getting more and more confused as she tries to remember how she had gotten there.

As she thought back, she remembered that she had been driving. She should have been at school, but she just hadn’t been able to deal with things. She was certain she had failed her pre-college algebra test, and was too nervous to attempt the test she would have been given in her English class, so she had just left school early.

She had been about a block away from her house when she had suddenly not been in her car anymore, instead being standing on the cliff. She had gone through many stress related panic attacks, she had been in the aftermath of one when she had appeared, but she had never once considered doing something like that, and the thought of how close she had been to the edge was sending her into another episode.

As she ran, she found herself on a beach, where she dropped to her knees in the sand, breathing deeply as she tried to calm herself down. She wasn’t sure how long she had sat there in the sand, but when she finally calmed enough to look around, she realized that it was sunset.

Meghan stood up and brushed the sand off of her body. She hoped that if she could stay calm, she might be able to figure out her current situation; confusing though it may have been to her.

She went walking across the beach, finding that the sound of the tides, along with the feeling of the sand and the smell of the ocean spray, actually worked wonders for calming her nerves.

She was actually relaxed and comfortable by the time she found the stronghold. It was something like a shack right at the edge of the beach, though it was built to last with strong stone and metals holding it together, not to mention the durability enchantments on it that Meghan couldn’t even see.

There was a lock on the door, but it wasn’t locked. Meghan could only assume that the place had given up by its owner sometime ago. The alternative, someone just forgetting to lock the door, seemed much less likely to her. Inside, Meghan found quite a few interesting things.

There were several sets of weapons and armor, as well as ropes and cloaks of fur. There were also tools for building and fishing supplies among them. There several crates of dried food and drinkable water, leaving Meghan to believe that this was some kind of fallout shelter.

What’s more, there were books. Many, many books in fact. They were written in a language Meghan didn’t understand, but one of the books, one containing many different languages, could help Meghan translate the words if she so chose. Most of the books were non-fictional history books, but the illustrations of dragons and wars with demons made them quite interesting nonetheless.

Meghan closed the door to the stronghold, using the furs to make a makeshift bed and blanket for the night. It was, surprisingly, the best night sleep she had ever had.

The next few days passed by in a blur for Meghan. She had plenty of food and water, and spent her time tinkering with the weapons and tools, translating the veritable library of books in the shack.

Her initial plan had been to simply wait at the stronghold until whoever owned it came by and she could ask for their help getting back home. However, a shocking realization hit her after about a week there: she wasn’t stressed.

She was a bit uneasy about not knowing how she had gotten here, but she wasn’t upset to be there. It was a relaxing place, and for the first time she could remember since she was a child, she was actually, truly happy. No stress from preparing for the world, no step-parents controlling everything, just her with her only obligations being to finally enjoy herself.

Midway through the second week, Meghan had begun hoping the owner of the stronghold would never return, a real possibility if Meghan was right about it being abandoned. She had begun teaching herself to fish, and one of the books she had translated identified the edible plants in the area, so running out of food wasn’t an issue.

She made a mistake though, at the end of her second week; one that very nearly killed her chances of living a long, happy life in the stronghold. She attempted to go swimming. She realized it was a mistake when she felt sharp claws brush against her, but froze in fear, unable to move as the amphibious sea creature rose from the water in front of her.

It would have surely eaten her, had a spear not punched through its chest. It fell back into the water, now dead, as the thrower, a tall green cloaked woman, the owner of the stronghold, approached.

Meghan, terrified and panicked again, immediately latched onto her, sobbing in fear. The woman, a ranger by the name of Sardel, had been ready to spear Meghan as well, as she was sure that she was the one who had broken into her stronghold. 

Now though, she could tell there couldn’t be much ill-intent behind it. She was afraid, confused, and lost. Sardel supposed it wouldn’t be too much trouble to help her out.


	18. Chapter 18

The troll was quite confused. Admittedly, that wasn’t saying much. Trolls usually were confused, never really fully understanding what was happening around them. But it was especially confused now.

Just moments before it had been out in the mountains, hunting for whatever unlucky meat creature would become its lunch. Now the troll appeared to be standing in someone’s backyard.

The massive, orange skill creature, draped in only a large, grimy brown cloth, lifted its enormous spiked club, which by all rights was just a thick, giant tree covered in sharp thorns. It scratched the back of its head in confusion with one of the spikes as it scanned the area with dull eyes.

There were two trees here, and there weren’t usually trees within the mountains. Nor was there usually grass, but the troll could feel it beneath its feet. This place didn’t look, feel, or smell like the mountains. Quite upsetting.

The troll was most confused by the house in front of it. The troll recognized it as something humans might live in, but it looked different to how it understood them, though he couldn’t really explain why.

But, upon remembering that houses held humans, and humans were meat creatures, it no longer cared. It lifted its club up over its head, spurred on by the thoughts of tasty blood, chewy meat, and crunching bones. It brought its club down hard on the roof of the building.

The first strike sent a shockwave through the house. Wood splintered, glass broke, and shingles flew off the roof. Three humans ran out of the house to see the cause just before the second strike of the troll’s club collapsed the house.

The humans were too shocked by the sight in front of them to react as the troll reached down and grabbed all three of them in one hand. The troll’s foul breath wafted over them as he brought them to its face, but they didn’t need to dwell on it too long, all being dead and sliding down the troll’s throat in a matter of moments.

The troll sighed happily, but it wasn’t quite full. It heard a scream, a loud one. Another human? That meant more food, and the troll turned in the direction it had heard the sound, lumbering towards it.

No humans ran out of the second house when the troll smashed, all of them having fled when they saw it approaching. It was just approaching the third house when it met some resistance.

It came first in the form of a single human with a sort of weapon. The troll couldn’t identify it, but there was a loud noise and the troll’s leg hurt. The troll couldn’t see anything leaving the object, so perhaps, it decided, it was some form of oddly long and metallic wand.

The shotgun took several shots to just cut through the troll’s thick skin, and even then it was only a slight trickle of blood that seeped from the wound. The man was crushed beneath the weight of the troll’s club.

More humans with other wands appeared soon after though. They all hurt and hurt from many directions, but not much actual damage was being done. The forced herded the troll into the street, opening fire from all sides.

The troll stomped on any that got close enough, swinging its club at those that it couldn’t. The force of the swing did more than the actual club did, forcing the people out of their cover and into stomping distance.

The troll didn’t like these spells the humans were using, causing little balls to roll over and explode into fire. These did more damage than the bullets, but also made the troll much, much angrier. The troll let out a roar, slamming its club into the ground.

The shockwave threw everyone off balance, letting the troll move forward, swinging its club to crush as many humans as possible before they could get up and retaliate.

The troll looked over the battered street, flattened piles of viscera now littering it. All threats appeared to be destroyed, and the troll began to move on to look for more meat, hopefully less aggressive than the meat here.

The troll stopped when it felt an intense pain in its head, like something powerful had hit it. It swung its club in the direction it assumed the pain had come from, then yelped as it felt it again, worse now.

Two streets away, the sniper kept their aim, firing whenever they got a clear shot. The first shot had broken the skin. The second had cut through the meat. The third cracked the skull, making the troll stumble before the fourth shot tore through its brain, killing it near instantly.

The troll fell dead on the ground, the dull light leaving its eyes as the sniper got up and left so damage control could take care of the rest.


	19. Chapter 19

Buck had been completely thrilled when he realized where he was. Confused sure, even a little nervous, but thrilled nonetheless. He had dreamt of such a thing happening to him for years, and now it finally had.

When he had first appeared inside the walls of the royal castle, he had thought he had been dreaming. He had, after all, fallen asleep playing a fantasy video game. At least, he assumed that he had fallen asleep.

But as he wandered the halls of the castle, he realized that he hadn’t fallen asleep. He was too aware of his surroundings and environment. He’d never had a lucid dream before, but he had a feeling that this wasn’t it. This, all of this around him, it was all real.

He wasn’t sure how such a thing had happened, but it made sense to him that it had. He’d seen all kinds of stories like this, people getting sucked into the worlds of the games or shows or books they indulged in. 

This castle did look like something that could have been in his game. And that, he thought gleefully, made him the main character. He was probably meant to save this world from some terrible fate, after which he would be given the choice to stay or return home.

He already knew which he would choose, so for now he just focused on the saving it bit. He had appeared in the royal castle, so there had to be something of some importance there for him to find or see. Following this train of logic, he began to explore the massive halls and rooms of the castle.

As he searched, he found that the royal insignia of the castle seemed to be that of a dragon with silver scales, ‘possibly meant to represent their strong spirits and wealth,’ Buck thought as he continued to look around.

The time they were in must not have had much in the way of lock making, as there were no locks to stop him from getting into any of the rooms. Then again, perhaps that was just the effect of him being the main character. He found the weapons room, a chamber with weapons of every kind lining the walls.

If he was going to save the world, he would need to start with getting a weapon. There were no guards stopping him, as they were all in the dining area guarding the royal family, and since he was obviously in charge here, he saw nothing wrong with taking something.

He pocketed two daggers, not yet trusting himself with any of the larger, stronger weapons in the room. He also took scroll, which seemed to be a map of the castle, and a glass bottle of glowing blue liquid. He wasn’t sure what it was, but a potion of any kind was bound to come in handy at some point in his adventure.

With these items in his inventory so to speak, he followed the map around the castle. He wanted to get a look at the royal family to see if they were good rulers in need of help or evil tyrants to be defeated. He found them in the dining hall, but couldn’t tell on sight.

He tried to walk over to them to talk, and was quite immediately grabbed by the guards. As it happened, a strange man in strange clothes walking towards the royal family with unclear intentions was cause for alarm.

Buck tried to explain that he meant no harm to the royal family. Unfortunately they couldn’t really understand him, and upon searching him, they found a dagger, a map of the castle, and a bottle of poison; all of which might be found on an assassin on a mission.

Attempting to attack members of a royal family was punishable by death. Buck quickly told them that he had simply found these items in the castle, but even after a nearby mage attending the feast cast a spell so they could understand him, they still didn’t believe him. Even if they had believed him, theft of the royal family was also punishable by death.

With nothing else to help him, Buck played the only card he had left: explaining that he was a traveler from another world. He told them he didn’t know why he’d been sent there, but that his intentions in this world were pure. He suggested that they consult a seer so he could prove to them that he was destined for only greatness in this fantastical land of magic.

Under normal circumstances, this plea would have been ignored. But the royal family had heard the story of the mage who had returned home from another world, heard the tales of other humans appearing in this world that the mage attempted to send back. 

On top of that, liars and thieves weren’t known to willingly confront a seer, as they couldn’t possibly lie their way out of such judgement. Buck’s claims, wild as they were, actually had some weight to them now, and they called for a seer.

An hour later Buck was sitting at a table across from an absolutely ancient woman adorned in dark blue clothing, her eyes wrapped to avoid physical sight that might tamper with prophecy. 

Buck was eager to hear what destiny awaited him in this world, and shifted excitedly in his chair as the seer used her magical and spiritual connections to peek beyond the veil.

When she spoke though, Buck’s heart sank. “This boy hasn’t got any future, none in this world at all. Rare to see something like it.,” the seer said, “Only demons and angelics don’t have seeable futures.”

Angelics were not known to carry carry murder weapons or stalk royals, but demons were. Before the sun had even set, Buck had been hung in the castle courtyard, his body bathed in blessed water before before being salted and burned, the ashes cast out to the sea to prevent any demonic possession.


	20. Chapter 20

The dragon was admittedly confused by its new situation, but it remained optimistic. The large winged reptilian opened its eyes to see that it was inside of a building, and currently staring down several terrified humans. The dragon grumbled to itself, rising to its feet.

The dragon’s only intention had been to exit the human building and return to its home, but the movement seemed to agitate the frightened humans. They screamed in fear, cowering wherever in the building they could. ‘Dim humans.’ The dragon thought to itself as it found what it assumed to be the exit and forced itself through, taking the door off its hinges as well as a good deal of the wall itself.

‘Interesting.’ The dragon thought to itself as it looked around, seeing the human town. It didn’t recognize any of the structures, nor did it recognize the terrain. It would never be able to find its way home from here, it thought, not knowing just how true the statement was.

‘No matter.’ It thought, spreading its wings and ignoring the screams of fear from the other humans outside. It leapt up into the air, flying off from the human town. It could find a new place of dwelling if need be, if it could find somewhere suitable.

The dragon was traditionally a mountain dweller by breed, but it, as most dragon breeds were, could be flexible of it needed to take up residence elsewhere. It supposed it would be a bit large to play the part of the forest dragon, but it was far from impossible.

The closest forest was easy for it to find. A clearing within that forest was more difficult a target to find, but after some searching, the dragon landed in a clearing. It would need some work, but it was nothing that the dragon couldn’t handle.

It opened its mouth and let out a blast of fire. The wood and grass caught quick, and in no time at all, the clearing was three times as big as it had been originally, and covered in smoldering charcoal and ash. A bit imposing, but it would do well for the dragon to live.

Hunting in the forest presented the dragon with a few issues. The instinct to use its wings had let the dragon to getting them tangled in vines and branches more than once, and even when navigating the trees, finding food was not. There didn’t seem to be any big game; no manticore or giant ants, just smaller hunts like wolves. They would have to do for now.

After some time, the dragon was settled into its new den. The next order of business was a simple matter: build a horde.

It was a draconic instinct to gather wealth. The dragon had had an average size treasure trove before it had appeared in this world. It wasn’t the dragon’s soul purpose for existence like it was for some of the other, thicker-skulled dragons, but not having a horde at all was a ridiculous notion.

It couldn’t be too difficult to gather enough for a decent sized horde. It left the forest for the first time in two months, not having needed to go anywhere up to now, and went searching.

Dragons were some of the best creatures for finding treasure. Their senses drew them towards it, and now they led the dragon to a human town. The humans were screaming when it landed, though perhaps it was more justified now.

The dragon broke the glass of a shop effortlessly, opening its mouth and using its tongue to take in the jewelry; swallowing the gemstones lodged in the rings and bands to be regurgitated later on. Not a terrible hall, but hardly enough for a horde. The dragon would need to keep going.

Its senses drew it towards a heavily guarded building. It could tell by its instincts that there was gold enough for a horde, perhaps even two, hidden within the building. The humans, however, didn’t seem keen on forfeiting it. The dragon could respect that much at least.

They took aim with their weapons, but the dragons didn’t feel much more than gentle thuds against its scales. It didn’t want to harm these humans if it didn’t have to, and so tried to sweep them away from the building with its tail. Many would suffer broken bones, but they would live.

The humans inside the building were a different case. They refused to flee, and there was little else the dragon could do in such close quarters. With little other choice, it opened its mouth and let out a jet of fire. In seconds, all the humans were engulfed in the flames.

The dragon found the vault and began trying to pry it open. It took several minutes to force its way inside, but once it had, it took its fill of gold. After tripling its body weight with the precious metals, the dragon turned to leave the building. Once outside however, it found a significantly stronger defending force.

There were many heavily armored humans, three massive metal wheeled things with long tubes aimed at the dragon, and spotlights from three flying things above. Unknown to the dragon, there were also several snipers waiting to fire.

The dragon let out fire to those on the ground. The armored humans were overwhelmed by the heat, but those within the machines didn’t seem affected. And fired from their tanks.

The dragon yelped in pain as chunks of its scales were blasted off. A second round of fire from the tanks had the dragon bleeding. It roared, jumping at the closest tank.

It’s claws dug into the metal, and it pried the barrel off of the tank, spitting fire inside of the machine. The dragon moved to the next tank, and the third fired on it while it did. The blast did more damage to the tank than to the dragon however, making it that much easier for it to open it and roast the humans inside.

The dragon would feel the stronger, more painful shots from the snipers, so rather than waste time with the third tank, it took off. Its movements were too fast in the air for the snipers to hit it, and the gunners within the helicopters themselves were taken out by another wave of fire.

As the flying machines crashed into the ground below, the dragon flew off into the night, carrying its treasure back to its den.


	21. Final Thoughts

Let us consider probability. It is an odd thing truly, affecting all individuals, people, plants, animals, stationary objects, completely equally. It disregards race, appearance, gender, status, religious belief, age, and so many other things that muddy up basically everything else to some length or another. It could be considered the one real great equalizer.

Sure, it’s possible for someone to stack the odds for themselves, give themself a better chance, but there’s always that chance, no matter how small, that things do not go as planned. Nothing is ever really and one hundred percent certain, nor is anything ever at zero percent.

Take, for example, the cases laid out here. Ten beings from two worlds crossing over into the land of the other, finding themselves suddenly located within a different universe to their own. 

They may have shared some common factors, but none of those factors could have contributed to such an event, as there was no real reason for it. None explainable by anyone within either of these worlds at least.

It was a simple matter of a one in several quintilian chance, resulting in a spontaneous transfer of energy, which in this case took the form of living beings. Two random worlds in the multiverse passing through each other. 

Quite a common event really, but probability allowed for lasting effects, particles lined up in just such a way as to carry one being from one world to another. It’s theorized to happen on a regular basis in fact, though usually with rather mundane items that wouldn’t cause a fuss were they to suddenly vanish from the world.

The individuals displaced from their native worlds here were in no way special or unique, and assuming such was as sure as one could get themselves to guaranteeing their doom. Only those able to keep a calm, level head are able to survive such a thing, and of those, only the truly remarkable find the bet possible outcome; either by finding their way back home, or by making their new world into their home.

The stories of those that survived are hardly finished, but this story is at its end I’m afraid. Perhaps at a later date their stories will indeed be visited once more, but there’s no more time left to spare on them now; time being one of the more essential commodities in any world, perhaps even the most important, but that is also a lesson for another day and another time.

So, all those reading, what have we learned? Probability doesn’t play favorites, so don’t expect it to. 

Even the worst roll of the dice can be made into a success for those who keep calm minds and act in accordance with what has happened, while those who believe their fates are sealed from moment one are so often doomed even when given the best of rolls. 

And if you ever find yourself displaced from your world, stay calm, stay collected, and pray that there’s a magic user in the world.


	22. Creature Glossary

Angelics: Angelics are a race of celestial beings. Coming from ‘beyond the veil’ (a realm hidden within the universe, a sort of sub-dimension where other being live), these creatures are thought to be quite spiritual people. Very few actually attempt to integrate themselves into common society, most usually just taking positions of power to help assist and teach ‘mortal’ beings. In ancient times they were worshipped, but in recent times they have been viewed less as actual celestial beings and more like normal beings from another world.

Ca’ganalish: One of the Hundred Great (a list of the one hundred deadliest/most powerful monsters in the world). A massive sea dwelling serpent, two hundred feet in length and ten in width. Its body was covered in scales thicker and tougher than plate mail, and many have long tendrils covered with spikes for attacking enemies at a distance. The being had five rows of teeth, each roughly the size of an imperial spear, and it breathed a chemical acid that could melt through stone in seconds. Believed to be demonic in origin. Slain by Praton.

Creeping roots: A sub-sentient plant being. Dwelling within swamps and at the bottom of large seas. They grow at an exponential rate when woken, stretching out in all directions, coiling around whatever animals are in the area, and feeding on them. Most feed on small creatures, fish and insects mostly, but some have been known to consume humans.

Dark Mage: A human/sentient being who has been corrupted by dark magic. Their bodies become shifted into something less organic, running more on magic than on energy from food and water. There is a massive variety of this being based on circumstance, but commonly they share the traits of a desire to control others and a need to collect magical artifacts.

Demonics: Similar to angelics, these beings come from a sub-dimension within the world, though theirs is less regal in appearance. Much like the angelics were once worshipped, these beings were once thought as devils, though it has since been proven that there are just as many evil angelics as demonics and as many pure of heart demonics as angelics.

Desert Worms: Large, dry skinned worm-like creatures that tunnel through the sand of deserts. They have an omni-directional sense with a radius of twenty feet around them. They can grow anywhere from five to twenty feet, have teeth throughout half the inside of their body, and generate a potent acid to fire at enemies that is strong enough to damage skin and burn clothes, but not enough to eat through armor.

Dragon: large, reptilian creatures. Differentiated from other reptilian creatures by having four legs and wings separate from their legs. Can live on islands, forests, in underground caverns, within caves in the fountains, and even in underwater passages. They can universally breath fire do to a mixture of chemicals generated by their body, and all have an instinctive desire to hoard treasure. In the past they were considered to be mindless monsters, but have since been proven to be sentient and capable of incredible wisdom.

Dryad: Nature spirits. On average there will be two or three living within any given forest, at least one in woods they dwell within trees themselves, their magical sense extending throughout the forest. They can exit their trees momentarily to speak with other beings, and have been known to pull people into their trees for various reasons. They can use their magic to aid in plant growth and healing, and can be killed only by the destruction of their original tree.

Elemental Spirit: Highly powerful beings made purely of elemental energy. Classified into the categories of earth, air, fire, water, light, and darkness, there are many subtypes of less powerful elemental spirits. They live throughout the world, maintaining nature and working with humans, often giving quests to adventures when in need of assistance.

Feral: A catch all term for wild animals. Wild boars, wolves, big cats, etc.

Forest Serpent: Large snake-like creatures with potent venom in their bite. Their scales are strong enough to deflect arrows, and their tails possess a sharp, non-venomous spike. They can grow up to forty feet, but average out at around fifteen.

Ghoul: A corpse animated randomly by a presence of magic around the body. They maintain their robbed form, though their body is altered slightly; their tongues growing large and beginning to produce toxins, and their teeth and claws growing into long fangs and claws. They feet on other living creatures to fuel the magic keeping them alive. Soulless, as some spirits of the passed on have had their bodies turned into Ghouls, and been sighted as being very displeased by the phenomenon.

Giant Ant: Massive ant-like creatures. Their behavior is near identical to that of a normal ant’s, but on a massive scale, making them much more dangerous to humans and other creatures. Their plated bodies make them defended against most normal weapons, and their acidic spit can eat through iron armor.

Giant Bat: much like giant ants, these beings behave much like their smaller variants, but on a larger scale, dwelling in caves in mountains and forests. Can be docile and even trained to fight with a human, but untrained, are prone to draining entire humans of their blood.

Goblin: Small, sub-sentient beings. Lacking natural teeth, they’re known to absorb jagged stones, broken glass and metal, or even sharp wood into their mouths, where they stick in place like fangs. Their claws are formed in a similar way. They dwell in large dens together, but have no actual organization, randomly gathering, leaving, and attacking.

Golem: Beings, usually humanoid but can come in any shape, of animated material. Normally clay, but can be made from anything that holds together. Can be formed artificially by a magic user/enchanter and used as helpers, or naturally by magic gathered together an animating formerly non-living materials. Natural golems have a one in ten chance of being intelligent or even fully sentient.

Ground Dragon: Technically not full dragons, as they possess no wings, and have no desire to gather treasure. These reptilian beings normally only grow to the size of canines, digging into the ground and living beneath the ground. They feet on foots and insects, but can become vicious if dug up. A ground dragon that has consumed its body-weight in meat will become a drake.

Gryphon: A hybrid animal of a bird and a big cat. While most commonly depicted as a cross of a lion and eagle, a gryphon can be a combination of any bird and any big cat. They are solitary creatures, only occasionally living in groups of more than two (only when having found a mate). Recent study has proven that gryphons can in fact breed with normal big cats, so long as the big catch matches that of the gryphon’s big cat trait.

Harpy: Hybrid animals of avian and human, with winged arms, talons, feathers across the body, and either beaks or fangs. These creatures come in two forms, feral and sentient. While the sentient variant has recently been made to participate in common society, they do still face some prejudice because of the existence of their feral cousins.

Hybrid: Humanoid beings with animalistic traits of other mammal creatures, most commonly canine, feline, and ursine. Ancient civilizations viewed them as sub-human, but in current times, after the roughly two-dozen wars over the subject, they’ve become as ingrained in culture as any human.

Kappa: An aquatic creature known to show both amphibious and reptilian characteristics. Roughly humanoid, and occasionally having turtle-like shells, these beings remain underneath the surface of the water, attacking humans and other creatures that enter their territory. Some believe them capable of minor magic that targets the soul.

Lizard Kart: A slang term for a feathered variant of the ground dragon. Growing larger than horses, they have almost completely replaced the animal for transportation uses.

Mage: A human who has dedicated him or herself to the study and master of magic. Some humans are born with innate magical ability, but those without any at all can train and become just as powerful, if not moreso, as willpower and determination are shown to affect one’s magical power. Most mages and mage schools follow a ranking of copper, silver, and golden threaded level mage, as it is the most immediate way to tell what rank they are by seeing what color thread is weaved into their mage robes.

Manticore: Large combination creatures. The majority of their bodies are combinations of big cat and ursine, but they are also known to have large fur covered wings extending from their backs and long, red scorpion like tails containing a paralyzing toxin.

Orc: Small, semi-sentient beings. They live in large groups, working together in mini-colonizes to gather supplies and attack humans. They can use small, uncomplicated weapons, and some specially trained Orcs can use a sort of tribal magic. Fairly unthreatening alone, but they possess strength in large numbers.

Pirate: Sentient seafarers working together on ships. Some are trained as sailors, others are rogue that attack and plunder. Not exclusive to humans.

Revenant: An undead brought back to life by rage and a strong presence of magic at their death. Their skin is thick enough to withstand most direct physical attacks, and while they retain some knowledge of the world, they are considered sub-sentient, acting more on some sort of perverse instinct to hunt down and kill anyone and everyone they consider responsible for their death, which is everyone who didn’t directly try to save them.

Seer: A human whose magical power allows them ‘see beyond the veil’, allowing them to see many possible futures, and thus able to take a highly educated guess at the destinies of others.

Slime: A basic lifeform straddling the line between sentient and sub-sentient. With a permanent grin, these beings (commonly blue in color but capable of being any color) can dwell in nearly any environment, and thus categorizing slimes could take up its own encyclopedia. Most all are semi-liquid, semi-solid beings that absorb various substances as food until they grow large enough to split (commonly ten times its primary size), which is the being’s only form of reproduction. Once they reach roughly four times their primary size, they become immune to attacks from standard melee weapons.

Troll: Large mountain dwelling beings. Orange skinned and armed either with their fists or occasionally with clubs or large rocks, these beings do little aside from hunt the mountains for food, and sleep. Sub-sentient, and shunned by true giant beings.

Warrior: Humans and other sentient life forms that travel the world in search of adventure, finding it in the form of quests given by spirits, seers, nobles, and even commoners able to afford it, dungeons, and the many monsters they encounter in their travels.


End file.
